They both ran until the truck, and its plume of exhaust, disappeared into oblivion.
Nick’s hands shook. His mouth was filled with the taste of ash and misery. He fell to his knees on the tar, fisted his hair at his temples and screamed profanities towards the heavens.
He was destroyed. He knew. He knew firsthand what was going to happen to that beauty. The tarnish that would colour the preciousness. The vile filth that would destroy the perfection.
The perfection that was Kira.
His body shuddered from the dreadful knowledge.
Then Euan’s hands were in his hair. Warm, strong fingers pulled at his fists. Nick shook his head, attempted to dislodge the tender probing. He didn’t deserve the cosseting. Euan had trusted him to find her, save her, get her safe.
And he’d failed.
A single brown eye consumed his vision. Gone was the warm molasses. In its place was the dark, cracked surface of charred timber. The fire that had blemished the wood still burned behind the iris. The fierce determination was etched into the coloured muscle. A jaw, covered in a thick dark beard, was clenched tight, as hard as stone, as strong as fortified steel. The crooked nose, the cauliflower ears, the eyepatch and naked scalp was familiar, and yet, almost everything about it had altered.
Instinctively, Nick understood. Euan’s mask was gone, and in its place was the warrior that had pulled him from the brink of destruction. The fighter that had run for sixteen hours straight after he cut the throat of a man who had sold his life to meet the devil. He had run on decaying boots with nothing in his belly and no hope that what he searched for would be there at the end of his terrible journey.
Before him now was the boxer that had fought for their lives in a dirt pit built for death, that had sent two souls to the wind with nothing more than a miniature axe and his wits.
The soldier that endured horrifying torture, so that he would never utter the whereabouts of those he loved, those he called family.
The man that now held his cheeks in his hands, who waited for Nick to calm. A man who brushed his thumbs under Nick’s eyes to dispel the wetness. A man whose knees knocked his own, both oblivious to the bite of the rough surface into their tight skin underneath. A man who made soothing noises through scarred lips, to quieten the tremor in Nick’s body.
Everything Euan did now would be for one single purpose. To save Kira. To communicate his plan to rescue the most precious thing left on this earth.
‘How bad are you hurt?’
The words seemed garbled at first. As if Euan spoke another language. When they registered, so did the pain.
Burning fire. Agony. Wetness. Nick attempted to move his arm to understand the damage, only to draw in a sharp breath as the spike of hurt speared through his nerves.
It was Euan who let go of Nick’s face to look. He clucked as he drew back the torn fabric and opened the wound on his forearm to the air. ‘Bleeding like a river,’ he muttered, his gaze narrowed. ‘It will need stitches before we go.’
Nick blinked. ‘Go?’
Euan raised that single eye to meet his. The scar that ran down from the bottom of his black eyepatch to bisect his cheek was still pink, purple, and dotted with white reminders of the stitches that had held his flesh together. An angry token to the horrors that Kira would now face. ‘We’ve got three choices, kid.’
The breath caught in Nick’s lungs. He swallowed.
Euan’s hands were back at his cheeks, and this time, Nick was not so consumed by the horrors of what had happened to be ignorant of the tremor in the muscles that held his face. He looked closer to discover Euan’s fear was just as prominent as his. The big man was just a master at concealing it.
After a swallow and a slow blink, Euan continued. ‘First, we can both go after her. Second, we can both find what’s left of Mickey-O’s men in an attempt to use them to save her.’ He paused, breathed. ‘Third, we can split up. Each take one path, in the hope that we increase the odds of success.’
The sob was there. It was in Nick’s throat, his chest, his eyes, his head. The grief. The utter desolation. Despair was an understatement. This choice was no choice at all. There was only one true option.
It destroyed him to consider it. Let alone speak it.
Euan knew it too. The look in his eye was laced with sorrow, rage, dread. To separate was to signal the end. To admit defeat of themselves, of their connection, the tether that pulled them close and made them whole. Their individual journeys would be coated in blood and death, and they would not have each other for protection. Their backs would be vulnerable, their hearts exposed. Separate they were weaker, but separate, they could achieve more.
Maybe, just maybe, separately they could save Kira from the motherfuckers that held her.
Nick choked on his words. His voice broke. He tried again. ‘We split.’
At his acquiesce, Euan’s strength left him. He crumbled. His forehead hit Nick’s, and his hands fell from his face to land on the tarmac. His fingers curled into fists that shook.
It was Nick’s turn to bring forth his courage. He took Euan’s hands into his own and pulled them to his chest. He forced open those large palms and pressed them over his heart. His voice was hoarse when he finally spoke. ‘I came back from it. With our love, she can come back from whatever happens. We won’t have it any other way.’
Despite the chill in the wind, Euan’s forehead was slick when he nodded against his brow.
Knees to the tar, fingers entangled, emotions held at bay
